


Purgatorio

by latin_cat



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Continuation, M/M, Mirror Universe, Sequel, UNIT
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-03-26 16:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13861482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latin_cat/pseuds/latin_cat
Summary: It's been two years since UNIT closed down Project Inferno, but an alert from the facility at Eastchester leads the Doctor to suspect that the incident may not yet be over.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [No Return](https://archiveofourown.org/works/741583) by [Sproid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sproid/pseuds/Sproid). 



> I've wanted to do an Inferno continuation for a while, but it was reading Sproid's fantastic work 'No Return' that really gave me the inspiration to do so. Thank you for bringing the Brigade Leader and Platoon Under Leader to life so vividly.

‘Quickly, Doctor, the power won’t last for long!’ Dr Williams warns.

That is his cue, and he unholsters his gun.

‘Long enough!’ They all turn at the sound of his voice, and he raises the pistol threateningly, aiming at the traveller. ‘You’re going to take us with you, Doctor.’

‘I can’t,’ the Doctor protests. ‘It’s impossible.’

‘I’d advise you to try,’ he warns, but the fool will not take the hint.

‘I can’t! I literally can’t! It would create a cosmic disaster.’

Oh yes, he is all fine words this Doctor, all high-minded principles. But, when it comes down to it, they are just words; meaningless, empty. Just like everything else.

‘You’re not going to leave us here!’ he barks.

‘Do you think I want to?’ The Doctor’s face is grim, but there is an expression of desperation in his grey eyes, knowing that their time is running out. ‘I’d give anything to save you all.’

As if he would ever believe that, after all they had put the Doctor through. The man was only out to save his own skin.

‘It’s not loaded!’ Sutton shouts. But Sutton is wrong, and he fires off a round to the side to demonstrate he had reloaded some minutes ago.

‘Let him go, Brigade Leader.’ Shaw is standing behind him, trying to sound menacing. Her betrayal stings the most. How could she do this? How could she resign herself to death like this, and all for some lunatic stranger?

‘We helped him,’ he growls, no longer even trying to keep the naked fury from his voice. ‘We’ve every right to go. I’ll give you until three, Doctor. One!’

‘You’ll have to shoot me, Brigade Leader,’ the Doctor says calmly, coldly. ‘I have no intention of taking you.’

His grip tightens on the pistol, anger boiling in his chest.

‘Two!’

The Doctor remains unmoved. His finger curls around the trigger.

‘Thre–’

The impact of the bullet in his back is so unexpected that the shock itself is enough to send him to the ground. As he falls the pistol slips from his hand, and he hears Shaw shouting.

‘Now’s your chance, Doctor!’

Shaw. Elizabeth-Bloody-Shaw. She at least he thought he could trust to be pragmatic, but now she has killed them all. The stupid bitch.

‘Go on, Doctor, get on with it!’ Sutton again.

He feels himself being dragged across the concrete floor, and the next few moments are a confused blur of movement, sound and sensation. The heat is overwhelming. Another bone-shattering explosion, and the earth beneath them shakes.

‘Go on, Doctor, go now!’ Shaw all but screams.

‘I can’t, it’s still too erratic!’ he hears the Doctor call. Somewhere else Dr Williams screams Sutton’s name, the earth shaking and screaming with her.

Before he is even aware of what he is doing, he is crawling, dragging his carcass across the floor towards the Doctor’s machine; a last, desperate urge for survival continuing to drive him beyond reason or conscious thought. He will not stay in this hell. He will not be left for dead, abandoned in this ruin of a world. He has fought too long, too hard, lost or denied himself too much. He has given his life to the service of the Republic and, after everything, he will not end like this!

A great, howling roar rings in his ears and he is swept up, away. He is falling, tumbling through darkness and light, drowning in noise. His mind and body are turned inside-out and back-to-front, falling down into oblivion… and then there is nothing but silence.

For a moment he lays there, the concrete cool and reassuringly solid under his hands. The air no longer burns his lungs, and the sweat that has drenched his uniform feels cold and clammy against his skin. He shivers. The bullet hole in his back reminds him of its presence, and he lets slip a moan. It takes him time to remember who he is or which way is up, but when he has finally done so he opens his eye.

With great effort, he pushes himself up from the concrete floor, ignores the sharp spike of pain this causes him, forces himself to stand and look around. He is still inside the stores hut, but there is no sign of the Doctor, his wretched machine, that ridiculous car or any of the others. The place is completely deserted.

He has done it. He has made it. He is alive.

A dry laugh escapes his lips, but the world spins around him and he stumbles forward, not even trying to hold back the groan this time. He has no time to waste, no chance to revel in his escape. He is not out of the woods yet.

He staggers forwards, towards the doors. The runners are stiff through lack of use, and he has to lean his whole weight against them to persuade the doors to move. More pain, more nausea. Finally he manages to create a gap large enough, and he slips through. Outside his boots meet tarmac, and he looks around for any sign of life. Nothing. Not a single guard, no scientists, no vehicles; just birdsong and the sound of the wind blowing through the empty gantries. The place is abandoned, weeds breaking up the edges of the roadway and beginning to clog the guttering of nearby buildings.

Another wave of pain has him gasping and clutching at his sides. He knows he is bleeding out, can feel himself going into shock. He needs to find help, and quickly; where from, he does not know, but he has to try. He cannot have escaped a dying world by the skin of his teeth, only to die here. Even for a universe as uncaring as this one, that would be one cruelty too many.

Gathering what wits he has left, he heads for where the control centre used to be, every step becoming more difficult than the last. Maybe if he reaches the main buildings he could find a phone line, see if by some miracle it is still connected? But the ground does not feel solid beneath his feet anymore. It seems to give with his every step, like he is walking on sand dunes. He feels dizzy, disorientated, but he must keep going… keep going…

The next thing he knows is that he has been rolled over onto his back, the spike of agony as his wound touches the ground being what jars him back to his senses. Someone is standing over him; a dark shape blotting out the weak sun above. He tries to focus, but he is so tired, so cold. Everything hurts too much – seeing, thinking, moving, breathing – and all he wants to do is sleep.

‘Well, well,’ says an unfamiliar voice, just as the world around him begins to fade to comforting blackness. ‘How very interesting.’


	2. From the Ashes

The Doctor looked up from his workbench in irritation. Just on the edge of his hearing there was a faint electronic bleeping; faint, but regular in intervals, and utterly insistent. Casting his gaze around the room, there didn’t seem to be an obvious source, though the sound was definitely coming from within the lab.

Turning off the soldering iron, he got up and took a quick circuit around the room. The sound seemed to be coming from a little-used corner on the other side of the sinks, between the fire exit and the filing cabinets. The filing cabinets had been added at the insistence of Lethbridge-Stewart when UNIT had first moved to their new HQ in Denham; a not very subtle hint about the Doctor’s laissez-faire attitude to record-keeping. When the Doctor had protested that the Brigadier was ‘bunging up his lab with unnecessary clutter’, the Brigadier had simply pointed out that the filing cabinets were for ‘necessary clutter’, and would be staying.

So the Doctor had taken him at his word, filling up the cabinets with as much ‘necessary clutter’ as he could find – bits of metal, reels of wire, nuts and bolts, dud lightbulbs, pieces of string and tubes of glue – to the point where it was impossible to close any of the drawers, and the mass of odds and ends had spilled out into the adjacent corner. The area had also since become something of a dumping ground for half-finished projects and devices that the Doctor no longer needed, but thought might one day come in handy for spare parts. The bleeping was very definitely coming from somewhere near the bottom of the pile.

Cursing his act of petty rebellion – though only momentarily, because overall it was worth it to see the pained expression on the Brigadier’s face every time he set eyes on the heap of rubbish – the Doctor divested himself of his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and started sifting through the various odds and ends. Disturbed from their precarious state of balance, bits and pieces of machinery immediately began to stream left and right, gathering pace in a gently clattering landslide.

When Jo walked into the room roughly five minutes later, she found the Doctor sifting through a slowly advancing tide of bits and bobs which had already swallowed up a third of the lab floor.

‘Doctor,’ she asked, with the air of one who might regret asking the question. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Trying to find whatever’s making that infernal noise,’ the Doctor grumbled, tossing aside another half-assembled gadget which skittered across the lino to join the other debris. The bleeping had definitely become louder, but the source was as yet still hidden. ‘It’s in here somewhere.’

Jo looked around at the assembled detritus and wrinkled her nose in disdain. ‘Serves you right for hoarding all of this old junk just to spite the Brigadier,’ she said primly.

The Doctor sighed in exasperation. ‘Jo, contrary to your belief, I do not undertake activities simply for the purposes of spiting the Brigadier. I have far more important things to do with my time.’

‘Oh?’ Jo asked innocently, though the Doctor didn’t seem to hear her.

‘Well, that remark about “necessary clutter” was below the belt,’ he muttered to himself. ‘He brought it on himself.’

‘I see,’ Jo replied, if somewhat sceptically.

‘See what?’ Sergeant Benton asked, as he walked in through the lab door. He grinned at the sight of the Time Lord sitting on the floor amidst a sea of rubbish. ‘Hullo, Doc. Finally decided to have a clear-out?’

‘No, I have not,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘I am trying to find a piece of equipment I have misplaced.’

‘In there?’ The sergeant regarded the jumble with surprise. ‘I thought that was just the rubbish pile you kept around to upset the Brigadier.’

Jo placed a hand in front of her mouth to hide her smile as the Doctor furnished Benton with a glare.

‘Sergeant Benton,’ the Doctor said crisply. ‘Everything here has the potential to be recycled into new equipment or used for repairs. Throwing away anything of the slightest use would be the purest folly! Rassilon knows it’s difficult enough for me to get the resources I need in this penny-pinching little set-up of yours.’

‘Sorry, Doctor,’ Benton said, suitably chastened. ‘Would you like some help? Many hands make light work, and all that.’

‘I doubt you’d be of any use in this case,’ the Doctor said stiffly.

‘Oh come on, give us a shot,’ Jo said brightly, clearly not having any truck with the Doctor’s bad mood. ‘What does this gadget look like?’

For a moment the Doctor paused in his digging, an embarrassed expression creeping into his eyes.

‘I don’t actually know,’ he admitted, grudgingly. ‘I have no idea what it is. It can’t have been anything I thought was important, seeing as I threw it away –’

‘Ah-ha!’ Jo cried, clapping her hands together in triumph. ‘So it _is_ your rubbish pile.’

‘That aside,’ the Doctor continued, deciding to ignore her remark. ‘I can’t have that infernal thing pinging away to itself in here, whatever it is. It’ll be just as well to deactivate it. Now, sergeant, if you take that side of the pile –’

‘Found it!’

The Doctor and Benton turned to see Jo holding up a small oblong metal box. It was about two inches by four, consisting of a tiny screen, with a row of three buttons and three corresponding lights. The small screen was showing a display of numbers, and the middle bulb was flashing red in time with the high-pitched beeping the device was emitting.

‘Oh no,’ the Doctor murmured quietly, taking the box from Jo’s hands. ‘“Infernal” was certainly the word for it.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jo asked. The expression on the Doctor’s face was making her feel uneasy.

‘Sergeant Benton knows, don’t you sergeant?’ the Doctor replied, directing a significant glance towards Benton.

Benton, however, looked just as confused as Jo. ‘Sorry, Doc, I don’t see what you’re getting at. I’ve never seen that thing before.’

‘Yes, well I suppose that may have been a little obscure after all this time,’ the Doctor conceded. ‘I’m referring to Eastchester, sergeant, and Project Inferno.’

It was clear that Benton definitely recognised that reference, judging by the look of distaste that crossed his face.

‘That?’ he asked, puzzled. ‘But that was years ago. The plant was shut down and the bore hole sealed off. You said yourself that there was no danger of it cracking open again.’

‘And there isn’t,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘But this detector isn’t anything to do with the bore hole.’

‘Will someone please explain to me what this is about?’ Jo asked pointedly.

The Doctor threw her an apologetic glance. ‘Two years ago UNIT was called in to oversee the final stages of a government-sponsored project that took place at a drilling facility in Eastchester,’ he explained. ‘It was under the direction of the late Professor Henry Stahlman – a brilliant scientist, but an utterly infuriating man almost wholly obsessed with his own ego.’

‘I can see why you two didn’t get on,’ Jo muttered, casting Benton a sideways glance. The sergeant had to fight to keep the smile from his face. The Doctor carried on his explanation, however, oblivious to the exchange.

‘Stahlman had discovered a sort of super-heated gas that lay just below the Earth’s crust,’ he continued. ‘His theory ran that tapping this gas would provide unlimited energy reserves, freeing humanity of its dependence on coal and oil – all he had to do was drill down far enough to reach it. Naturally the government lapped it up, and gave the project its full backing.’

‘Sounds too good to be true,’ Jo said, wondering.

The Doctor nodded. ‘In this instance Jo, that was exactly the case. As I said, Stahlman was brilliant, but there were some key flaws with his theory and calculations. He had not taken into full account the nature and scale of the forces his drilling would unleash.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Benton remarked. ‘There was some weird super-heated green goo which leaked up the drill shafts. No one knew what it was, but anyone that touched it turned into sort of, well, werewolves.’

‘Primords,’ the Doctor corrected. ‘An evolutionary throwback, and a side-step along a different mutation.’

‘Well, whatever they were, five people were killed,’ Benton said, a bitterness creeping into his voice. ‘Including one of our own; Private Sam Wyatt. He was a good man, a crack shot; left behind a wife and a daughter. Didn’t deserve what happened to him.’

‘None of them ever do,’ the Doctor said sadly. ‘But that wasn’t the worst of it. Had I not stopped Stahlman, the forces released upon the drill penetrating the Earth’s crust would have been catastrophic, setting off a volcanic chain reaction across the world, laying waste to continents and rendering the planet uninhabitable within the space of a few weeks.’

Jo shivered, imagining the hellscape the Doctor described. And to think, only two years ago she had been just like everyone else; blissfully unaware of the magnitude of the threats faced by UNIT, convinced that the world would end with the dropping of an H-bomb by Russia or America. By comparison, thermonuclear war seemed a fairly tame way to go these days.

‘Just as well that you stopped it from happening, Doctor,’ she said firmly.

The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck thoughtfully. ‘Well, I did and I didn’t,’ he said softly.

Jo’s brow creased in confusion. ‘Huh?’

‘Whilst at Eastchester I was using the facility’s nuclear reactor to conduct some experiments of my own.’

‘With the TARDIS console?’

The Doctor blinked, momentarily taken aback. ‘Why, yes,’ he said, somewhat surprised. ‘How did you know?’

‘Just a wild guess,’ Jo mumbled.

The Doctor cast her a suspicious glance, but continued his story. ‘Anyway, during one experiment Stahlman interrupted my power supply, and it had the result of sending me sideways into a parallel reality. They were also running their own version of Project Inferno there, but that world was about six or seven hours in advance of ours. I was unable to stop them, and I got to see the results – first hand.’

‘So you managed to get back and stop the drilling here?’

‘Only just. The return trip across the dimensional barrier knocked me out cold, and I only just woke in time to call things to a halt.’

‘And what happened to Stahlman?’

‘He was the last casualty of the Project. It turned out he’d been infected by the green ooze, and it slowly drove him mad, before finally changing him into a Primord. After that the government had no choice but to abandon the whole sorry venture.’ The Doctor shot a glare at Benton. ‘Although, things would have gone a bit smoother if the Brigadier hadn’t tried to have me arrested on my return.’

Benton grinned sheepishly in response. ‘Be fair, Doc. All that talk of mirror worlds and alternate realities, he seriously thought that the trip had scrambled your brains.’

The Doctor let out a grudging harrumph. ‘Just as well for you all they weren’t! I still don’t think he believes me about that parallel world business. He probably imagines I dreamt it.’

‘You’ve got to admit,’ Benton said. ‘It does all sound a bit far-fetched – even for us!’

‘What was it like, this parallel Earth?’ Jo asked, curiosity getting the better of her. ‘You called it a “mirror world”. Did that mean that everyone here had doubles there?’

‘Almost everyone,’ the Doctor said, seemingly warming to the subject. ‘Certainly everyone I had seen at the facility did. On the whole it was rather like our world; only, at some point in its history, Great Britain had become a fascist republic, ruled by a ruthless dictator, its security forces purveyors of fear and violence. Stahlman, Liz Shaw, the Brigadier, even the good sergeant here – thugs and bullies, the lot of them!’

Jo looked at Benton in astonishment, trying to imagine him as a ‘fascist bully’ and utterly failing.

‘So the Doc says, miss,’ Benton said, grinning. ‘Apparently Platoon Under Leader Benton was a real nasty piece of work.’

‘Yes,’ the Doctor said darkly. ‘But, for all his faults, a staunch and loyal soldier to the end. The real villain was their Brigade Leader, Lethbridge-Stewart’s doppelgänger. A brutish, jackbooted oaf, utterly convinced in his own superiority, and with a fondness for inflicting pain on both his men and his prisoners. And, like all bullies, underneath it all an inveterate coward. He I did not care for at all.’

‘I can see why the Brigadier had a hard time believing you,’ Jo said. Nothing the Doctor had described could have been further from the truth of the UNIT personnel she knew.

‘Well, far-fetched or not, he’s about to be proved very wrong,’ the Doctor said crisply. He held up the box for them to see, the screen of which was still illuminated. ‘I left some monitoring equipment there, just in case, as there was a chance there might be some trace energy left from the breach. In truth I didn’t expect to hear anything from that site ever again – that world was destroyed, after all.’

‘But what does it mean?’ Benton asked, his brow creasing with fresh concern. ‘And why now?’

‘I’m not entirely sure,’ the Doctor mused, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. ‘Most likely it’s just an echo; the last vestiges of a dying world, caught up in the time stream. The energy levels registered here are miniscule; nothing near those required for a breach at all.’

‘But you’re going down to investigate?’ Jo asked. The Doctor beamed at her.

‘Naturally,’ he said breezily. ‘Just on the off-chance it may be something a little more serious. Are you coming?’

Jo laughed in response. ‘Try and stop me!’ she said, grabbing her coat from the hat stand by the door. Benton, however, stepped in her path before she could reach the lab doors, his expression a long way from happy.

‘Hang on a minute, Doc,’ the sergeant said. 'Hadn’t you better clear it with the Brig first; let him know what’s going on? Leastways you can take a small squad down. Just to be on the safe side.’

‘Sergeant Benton,’ the Doctor said stiffly, gathering his cloak about him. ‘The day I require the Brigadier to “clear” anything I do will be the day I find a Thraskin nesting in the fume cupboard! But, if it makes you feel any better, you can inform Lethbridge-Stewart from me that Miss Grant and I are going down to Eastchester on a matter of extreme importance – whether he believes he can spare us or not.’

‘But –’

‘And if he needs me in the meantime,’ the Doctor continued, holding the door open for Jo as she walked out. ‘He might try exercising that limited military intelligence of his to solve his own problems for once, or wait until I get back!’

 

***

 

_The world screams and shakes around them. The Doctor is standing there at the console, gripping the edge of the machine with white knuckles, his stormy grey eyes defiant._

_‘You’re not going to leave us here!’_

_The gun is in his hand again, the metal hot against his skin as he aims the barrel at the traveller. But it’s not the Doctor anymore. The Doctor has vanished, and in his place he sees his brother, James. Older than he remembers him, but he’s there – faint, transparent, like an echo or a ghost. He is speaking, but his voice is indistinct._

_‘Alastair … hear me? You have to stop … whatever … need to calm down.’_

_James. James who swore he’d look after him, James who defied their father, James who ran away. No, it couldn’t be, it had to be a trick. He counts down, his finger curling around the trigger. James runs towards him, arms outstretched, his face a picture of desperation._

_‘No!’_

_The gunshot cracks loud, the bullet hitting him in the back and passing straight through. The breath escapes from his lungs as pain shoots through his limbs. He reaches out, feels his brother’s arms envelop him, but he is falling, falling…_

Alastair started awake, his heart pounding in his chest.

He was lying on his front, his head twisted uncomfortably to one side. After a moment's confusion he realised that he was strapped to some sort of hospital bed, a heart monitor and a couple of IV lines visible directly in front of him. Someone had removed his eyepatch, and the draught along his back confirmed that his uniform had been exchanged for a hospital gown.

Something was off, though. He felt detached, light-headed, as if he weren’t quite in contact with the rest of his body. They – whomever ‘they’ might be – must have him on some sort of drugs; he was sure he should have been in a lot more pain than he was at that moment.

Fortunately he was lying so that his one eye was not obscured, though his field of vision was still extremely limited. He could not see much more of the room itself from where he was, save that it sported a strange pattern of roundels on the walls, but he gained an overall impression of stark whiteness and sterility. It was certainly cleaner than any hospital that he had ever been in. Yet there was what looked like a bank of computers arranged against the far wall, their lights blinking away sporadically. Computers or not, however, the equipment seemed pretty advanced. Besides the beeping of the heart monitor there were no other sounds, save a low mechanical humming in the background. Oddly, he seemed to feel this more than hear it.

Alastair tried to urge his sluggish brain into something resembling life. Despite poking at the corners of his memory, he could not recall being brought here, wherever ‘here’ might be. The last thing he remembered clearly was sound; a great roaring in his ears as he managed to break through into the other world, barely escaping the burning ashes of his own. He remembered arriving in the stores hut, staggering out to try and find help… And then he must have fallen. He remembered the agony as someone had turned him over and his wound had touched the ground, a figure standing over him in silhouette – but after that, there was nothing.

One thing was clear, however; wherever he was now, whoever had found him and treated his wounds, he was a prisoner. Which meant that his first priority was to escape.

Having determined as much, Alastair shifted his arms so that he might test his bonds. He was still weak, and the movement cost him too much energy – a lethargy, he suspected, not wholly the result of natural exhaustion. The straps did not give much on this first attempt, and so he redoubled his efforts; yet as he braced himself, the lately-absent pain decided to return, lancing across his back like a sheet of fire. There was no supressing the moan that escaped his throat, and the beeping of the heart monitor sped up in apparent sympathy.

‘Please forgive the restraints.’ A smooth, cultured voice spoke from somewhere off to his left. A man’s voice. ‘Merely a necessary precaution. Your counterpart in this world and I are not on the best of terms.’

Alastair froze, doing his best to fight down the remaining pain whilst attempting to steady his breathing. He had thought himself alone in the room, not picking up on anyone else’s presence at all. He heard soft footfalls coming nearer, and a neatly-dressed man stepped into his field of vision; dressed all in black, a high collar framing his short black and grey beard, deep brown eyes and patrician countenance.

‘I would not move too much if I were you, either,’ the man continued lightly. ‘Though your wound was easy enough to treat, and the painkillers are vastly superior to your primitive medicines, they are still only effective to a certain degree.’

Alastair continued to lie still, though not out of any desire to avoid further discomfort. Almost instantly he had recognised that he was dealing with a very dangerous character; he knew the type well – the poised, quiet ones. He had encountered enough of them over the years to know just how deadly such men and women could be, and those that underestimated or disregarded them always did so at their peril. Alastair silently cursed the drugs in his system for dulling his senses; now that his captor knew he was awake, he had lost any small advantage he might have gained by feigning unconsciousness.

The man continued to regard Alastair with what seemed like a mixture of amusement and curiosity, the expression in his dark eyes sharp and calculating.

‘I am glad that you are finally awake, however,’ he said. ‘You cannot imagine how much I have been looking forward to speaking with you.’

So that was it, Alastair reflected darkly; interrogation. So much for this world being any different from his own. Well, if that was the way it was going to go, he would give as best as he could, even if at this stage it was only to spit in the face of the universe. Despite being tied in such an awkward position, he furnished his captor with the best glare he could muster.

‘Lethbridge-Stewart, Alastair Gordon,’ he said stiffly. ‘Brigade Leader, Republican Security Forces. 539922.’

The man laughed. It was a rich, throaty sound; utterly self-assured, and utterly chilling.

‘Now, there’s really no need for that! I have no interest in interrogating you whatsoever, though doubtless it would prove amusing. From all accounts you have some skill in that area yourself. Allow me to introduce myself; I am the Master.’ He met Alastair’s gaze directly, suddenly intense and focussed. ‘And you will see that you have nothing to fear. Nothing at all. You will trust me. Trust me.’

All at once Alastair felt that dark, impossibly deep gaze pulling at his mind. The man’s voice was so calming; reassuring and commanding. He felt overwhelmed by a tremendous urge to obey that voice, knowing that if he did as it asked everything would be easier, so much easier… _No._ He shook his head, angry and insulted in equal measure. Did this maniac really think he could be taken in so simply?

‘Lethbridge-Stewart,’ he growled. ‘Alastair Gordon. Brigade Leader, Republican Security Forces. 539922.’

The Master gave a thin smile, apparently both disappointed and impressed.

‘My congratulations, Brigade Leader,’ he said neutrally. ‘It would seem that you are just as resilient as your counterpart in this world – both physically and mentally.’ He stepped over to one of the medical machines, checking the readings with an air of casual efficiency. ‘But I mean what I say about interrogation. I already know what I need to know about you.’

‘Do you, now?’ Alastair said before he could stop himself, his voice laced with sarcasm.

The Master turned back to him, his expression conveying a certain smugness.

‘Indeed, I do,’ he said. ‘You see, I already knew your identity, before you so obligingly confirmed it for me. You are Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart, son of Gordon Conall Lethbridge-Stewart and Mary Gore, brother to Gordon James Lethbridge-Stewart – though, in this world, neither father nor brother made it past our Brigadier’s childhood. You have had an interesting career, being trusted with the security of some very high-level projects indeed; first in the Army, then in the Republican Security Force responsible for Downing Street, followed by the scientific facility at Eastchester.’

The Master’s smile widened into a grin at the look of shock on Alastair’s face.

‘Yes, the name of Eastchester was not entirely unfamiliar to me. I have had contact with your world before, as I have been aware of your existence and encounter with the Doctor for some time – though, like everyone else, I was given to believe you had perished in your own reality.’

At the mention of the Doctor, Alastair’s stomach gave a sickening lurch. But how could the Master know all this? Even being an associate of the Doctor, the traveller had not been in Alastair’s world long enough to learn anything about him beyond his name and rank, let alone his family and career, unless…

Unless the Master had already interrogated him, and he had been made to forget that he had talked. Such drugs existed in his own world; it was not impossible that they had them here too. Or, even worse, perhaps this was a test? What if he was still in his own world? Maybe all of this – the Doctor’s visit, the ruination of Project Inferno, the whole nightmare scenario – had been nothing more than an elaborate test to gauge his loyalty; push him to the limit and see if he would crack? In a twisted way it would make more sense than a traveller from a parallel universe.

But no, the terror in Benton’s eyes had been real as he had been taken by those creatures, as had his screams as the infection had raged through his body…

Oh God, Benton.

Alastair closed his remaining eye against the remembered screams. What felt like a chasm opened up in his chest, and despair set in as he had never felt it before. It had been real. All of it. In just a matter of minutes his whole world had come crumbling down around him; order thrown into chaos, his men dead or turned into beasts, betrayed by those few he thought loyal, and the only person he treasured most above all things… And now here he was; alive, alone, a prisoner. There was nothing left for him.

‘Do what you like with me,’ he said coldly. ‘It doesn’t matter now. You can tell your precious Doctor that he’s won.’

There was a long silence, and the Brigade Leader waited, resigned to whatever pain would certainly come. Then he heard the straps around his ankles being undone, feeling the release of pressure as they were freed. Alastair’s eye snapped open in surprise, and he watched, confounded, as the Master undid the last of his straps, then gently urged him to sit up on the edge of the bed. Mutely, Alastair obliged – not that he was in a condition to really resist, anyway. Despite moving slowly, pain stabbed at his back and his head swam, his breath hissing between gritted teeth. When his vision cleared he turned his stiff neck to look at the Master, who was standing patiently beside him, dark eyes watching him closely. Alastair frowned, hopelessly and utterly confused.

‘Why?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘Allow me to explain something of my own circumstances,’ the Master said smoothly. ‘The Doctor and I are acquainted, but whereas he happily puts his services at the use of lesser beings, his precious human paramilitary and their vacillating governments, I am nothing near so weak.’

‘You don’t work for the Doctor?’ Alastair asked, not even attempting to hide his astonishment. The casual use of the word ‘human’ struck him as odd, but he let that pass for now.

‘That dilettante dandy?’ The Master tutted, his distaste at the idea all too clear. ‘No, though the Doctor and I are well acquainted, we are hardly on friendly terms. He is a worthy adversary, our occasional clashes amusing enough to pass the time, but we are firmly on opposite sides of the table. Where he is content with servitude, I have greater ambitions. Tell me, how did you escape from your world?’

The question was innocuous enough, considering the change in circumstances, but instinct still made Alastair hesitate. The Master inclined his head in acknowledgement.

‘I see you are still understandably sceptical. Very well, allow me to tell you something of how I found you; parts of it may even ring familiar. I was nearby when my TARDIS - that is my ship, where we are now - picked up a small spike in artron energy. This is the same source of energy which powers my TARDIS. Like calls to like, you understand, but the reading was too small to be another craft. My curiosity piqued, I went to investigate, half-suspecting that meddling buffoon had been trying some ill-advised experiment of his own. Yet imagine my surprise when I was led to an abandoned government facility where I found, not one of the Doctor’s toys, but a wounded soldier in a uniform I did not recognise. As soon as I saw your face I knew I was on to something special, so I took you back to my TARDIS, patched you up, and whilst you slept I made use of various contacts to make sure that I was not mistaken in my supposition.’

The Master smiled again, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

‘And here we are. How surprising, and how fortuitous, that you should appear now – in this place, at this time, and right in my path. It’s almost enough to make one believe in destiny.’

Some of the Master’s narrative had indeed, rung true. Alastair recalled the dark figure he had seen standing over him when he was laying on the grass, remembered the voice he had heard just as he was blacking out. It had definitely been the Master, he knew that now, and he had indeed saved his life when he could just as easily left him for dead.

The Brigade Leader drew in a deep breath, his grip on the edge of the bed tightening. There was no real reason for him not to answer. Whatever game the Master was playing, he certainly had no hope of fathoming it; and besides, what exactly did he have left to lose?

‘The Doctor had got his machine working again,’ he murmured. ‘We were in the stores hut on the edge of the complex, the last four survivors and him. He was just going to leave us there, willing to let us be burned alive whilst he escaped to his other world.’

‘He didn’t offer to take you with him?’ The Master sounded genuinely surprised.

Alistair laughed bitterly. ‘No. No, our rescue would have caused “a cosmic disaster”, according to him – so only he could be saved, of course.’

The Master scoffed. ‘He is a hypocrite of the first order,’ he said. ‘He could have taken you if he pleased; your presence here alone is proof of that! Oh yes, he is all high and mighty, claiming to abide by the petty laws of an impotent council, but won’t hesitate to break them the moment that it suits his purpose.’

So he had been right after all; vindication, of sorts, but far too late for any of the others. For the first time since waking up in this world, Alastair began to feel something other than despair; anger. He welcomed it. Anger he was familiar with, anger he could use. But for the moment placed it to one side, and concentrated on continuing his story.

‘The others were stupid enough to believe him,’ he said. ‘But I wasn’t so ready to give in. I drew my gun on him; either I’d force him to take us with him, or none of us would go. But then Shaw –’

‘Doctor Shaw?’

‘Section Leader Shaw,’ Alastair growled, glaring at the Master for the interruption. ‘She shot me in the back, treacherous bitch. They dragged me away from the console, but then an explosion distracted them, and I hauled myself back...’ He paused, frowning as he tried to recall what he had seen. ‘And then there was this noise, these lights, and I was falling. I don’t know how long it took – a few minutes, maybe more – and then I had stopped; the air was cold and everything was quiet. I knew I’d made it, but I also knew I wouldn’t last long if I didn’t get my wound seen to. But when I went to find help there was no one.’

His frown deepened and he shook his head, baffled.

‘I don’t understand. The Doctor said that they were working on the same project here, but when I arrived the place was derelict. How could that have happened so fast?’

‘For you, it was only a few minutes, but for us it has been longer,’ the Master said. ‘You are two years adrift from when the Doctor returned. From what you described, you must have been caught on the very edge of the time field when the Doctor’s TARDIS console dematerialised. Travelling through the Vortex without the protection of a capsule is a dangerous business, even for Time Lords. You have my sincere congratulations for making it back at all, Brigade Leader.’

‘Much good it has done me.’ Alastair remarked bitterly – again, leaving aside the question of what a ‘Time Lord’ was for now.

‘You are alive, are you not?’ the Master said pointedly. ‘And you were fortunate that it was I that found you, and not the Doctor or his friends in UNIT. Now is not the time to indulge in self-pity.’

The remark stung, and Alastair shot the Master and angry glare. ‘And why would you be any better?’ he asked caustically.

‘We have an enemy in common,’ the Master replied, entirely unfazed by Alastair’s outburst. ‘And I believe we can be of use to one another.’

Alastair eyed the Master warily. ‘Why would you want to help me?’ he asked.

The Master furnished him with another thin smile. ‘Because, Brigade Leader, I see in you a very worthwhile investment. Because, unlike your misguided counterpart in this world, you understand the importance of power, and the need for those who wield it to keep in check those of lesser ability – and you have a deep-seated instinct for survival, which I can only respect. You need a purpose in this new world; an arena in which to exercise your considerable potential, and I am the man that can give you this.’

‘How?’ Alastair asked gruffly.

The Master folded his hands neatly behind his back and began to pace. ‘Your very singular circumstances present me with an opportunity,’ he continued. ‘An opportunity to do permanent damage to the Doctor and his associates in UNIT. In so doing, I can offer you a chance to make a new life – and allow you to enact a deep and lasting revenge on the man who left you for dead.’

The prospect sounded appealing, Alastair had to admit. Whether he took the offer or not, he had to start somewhere in this world; what better way than avenging the one he had lost? The Master’s hatred for the Doctor and all he stood for was clear. It was equally clear that he had the knowledge to plan meaningful action against the Doctor and this ‘UNIT’ for whom he worked – and doubtless he had the resources to follow any such plan through.

Alastair narrowed his gaze, regarding the Master critically.

‘What reason do I have to trust you?’ he asked bluntly, making no bones about his suspicion.

The Master shrugged.

‘Absolutely no reason at all,’ he admitted. ‘Except my enmity. You hate the Doctor, and I would sorely like to see him beaten. Combining our efforts is the most logical way forward.’

He held out one gloved hand to Alastair, a smile playing at that corners of his mouth, a dangerous glint in those dark eyes.

‘Do we have, as they say, a deal?’

Alastair regarded the Master’s hand for a moment. Then he grasped it firmly, looking back up to squarely meet the other man’s eyes.

‘We do.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reference to James is from the short story 'Ashes of the Inferno', from the Lethbridge-Stewart novel range by Candy Jar. (Do check them out, they are an awful lot of fun.)


End file.
